skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Plastic Pollution Threatens Ecosystem in Great Lakes

play audio
Play

Tuesday, January 16, 2018   

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Advocates are hoping 2018 is a year of better water quality in the Great Lakes and oceans.

Carolyn Box, the Science Program Director with 5 Gyres, says by the year 2050, there will be more plastic in the water than fish, with 95 percent of it coming from land. That trash ends up in storm drains and rivers then flows into the Great Lakes and oceans.

She says plastic is trapped within currents, taking at least 10 years to cycle back out, if it doesn't get eaten by marine life or sink to the bottom.

"It's breaking down from wave action and sunlight, so it's breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces, and it's also attracting other contaminants to the plastic itself, which is making those pieces of plastic more toxic," she explains.

Box says more people are talking about plastic waste, and companies are taking baby steps to eliminate it. There's a petition drive on Change.org asking Royal Carribean International to reduce the use of disposable plastic utensils. The group The Last Plastic Straw says on average, each person in the U.S. uses about 38,000 straws between the ages of 5 and 65.

Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed into law the Microbead Free Waters Act of 2015, which amended the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to ban personal-care products containing plastic microbeads. The Alliance for the Great Lakes says that's not enough. Microbeads only make up 16 percent of the plastic pollution. Box says microfibers also are under a lot of scrutiny because they can cause a lot of damage to the ecosystem.

"Synthetic clothing is now shedding plastic into our waterways, so it's going down our sinks and down our drains from our washing machines and heading to the wastewater treatment plants and making its way out into the waterways," she adds.

Box says lawmakers and businesses need to step up, but individuals can help too by buying as little plastic as possible, particularly water bottles. A study by the Rochester Institute of Technology found nearly 10,000 metric tons - or 22 million pounds - of plastic debris enter the Great Lake every year.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021